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How do I know? Valid question.
However, nothing I say could satisfiy someone...UNLESS.. they knew me for decades
and sat with me, looked into my eyes...as I told them or sat with me AS these experiences were happening!
Nothing like a contact high.
I could have had an NDE and traveled to the outer reaches of this Galaxy...how does one REALLY
transmit that to another? Well, sometimes it can happen to a ready receptive soul...
How does one know they are in love? A friend could see it...and feel the change...
Sorry...I'm not so good at explaining something is NOT an hallucinagen.
My soul knows. A soul knows. You will know.
And it will never make any difference if anyone ever believes you...bec you know now.
You have been given the Connection....and your life is forever changed.
Sorry, not much help, I tried.
You're right. This was no help at all. Let me put it to you this way. Suppose I was given a baseball, but I had no knowledge what a baseball was, how could I call it a baseball without someone telling me? I would need a frame of reference to come to a conclusion that it was indeed a baseball. The same must be said for your god. You claim that its not the god of the OT, and is not the wrathful god of the NT that will send you to hell for not believing in him. So, what is your frame of reference that led you to determine that what/who was speaking to you was a god? Is it not possible that this is a psychological condition such as those rooted in narcissism, schizophrenia, or multiple personalities.
When you and Mystic make this claim of special knowledge, as Rafius put it to you earlier, why are you two the "specials ones" that your god decided to make him/her self known to? Why were you chosen to spread this word of the true attributes of God, like a modern day John Denver in the movie Oh God? Why is he/her not more concerned about the starving children in Africa then you? You might actually believe these experiences are genuine, as have many who have now been cured of these conditions, but one cannot credibly make definitive statements based upon these experiences from seemingly supernatural origins.
Amazing, John. I would just add that it is fallacy or even bamboozlement to play the 'You don't know what it was like - you weren't there!' card. Again and again you have to stand outside the experience to evaluate it. Get too close and you lose perspective.
No. I haven't experienced this God = Love thing. But I know a man who has. Half of atheists have been there, done that and got the 'God is Love' T -shirt. And they came to realize that it wasn't God at all. It was something inside their own heads.
That is why, Miss Hepburn, while I can understand and sympathize with the claims you and Mystic make that your mental experience is telling you that there is a real god Out There, I cannot take your word for it and must suppose that you have both misinterpreted the experience.
Now, while I have made my position clear and have explained why I am there and assuring you that I am quite happy for you to believe what you like and am delighted that you are so happy with it. I would again ask whether this God is Love which is still the God of the Old Testament is wrathful or not.
Do you maintain that the OT accounts of a God who is seriously short on love and long on brutality are simply not true? Or whether in some Mystical way all that is justifiable as the actions of a God of Love.
That is why, Miss Hepburn, while I can understand and sympathize with the claims you and Mystic
make that your mental experience is telling you that there is a real god Out There,
I cannot take your word for it and must suppose that you have both misinterpreted the experience.
.
This is the classy way one disses or disagrees or disbelieves someone or their experiences.
I hope others can learn from this.
I respect you, Arq and your skeptism, shall we say?
I do not expect anyone to ever believe the things I say have happened to me...they are
pretty amazing, I agree....and you don't know 99:9% of them! Ha!
I'm too new here to have told many yet!
Just to clarify..."Out There" and all around and inside me...wowsa!
Take care Miss Hepburn
This is the classy way one disses or disagrees or disbelieves someone or their experiences.
I hope others can learn from this.
I respect you, Arq and your skeptism, shall we say?
I do not expect anyone to ever believe the things I say have happened to me...they are
pretty amazing, I agree....and you don't know 99:9% of them! Ha!
I'm too new here to have told many yet!
Just to clarify..."Out There" and all around and inside me...wowsa!
Take care Miss Hepburn
So, why are you attempting to contribute to this forum, if you don't expect other posters to believe you? You have every right to post, but how can you advance the debate by posting views that you don't expect others to believe? You won't even explain your experiences. In this thread I'm not even asking you to convince others, but what convinced you that it was God?
This is the classy way one disses or disagrees or disbelieves someone or their experiences.
I hope others can learn from this.
I respect you, Arq and your skeptism, shall we say?
I do not expect anyone to ever believe the things I say have happened to me...they are
pretty amazing, I agree....and you don't know 99:9% of them! Ha!
I'm too new here to have told many yet!
Just to clarify..."Out There" and all around and inside me...wowsa!
Take care Miss Hepburn
You may always rely on me, dear madam, to be classy. I may talk crap (1), but it's classy crap.
I do not at all rule out that you and Mystic too are right. Even less do I want to stop you believing it. All I am saying is that the reasons commonly given as to why it can be relied on as true with the implication that we ought to believe it, too or at least take your explanation as true, do not convince and there is no good reason for us to believe it.
That said, we can agree to differ and can reasonably co -exist assuming that you do not seek to impose your views on us through hi -jacking law, politics education and science.
It is organized religion that I am chasing with a metaphorical crane with a large black ball swinging on the end. But in the classiest way possible, mind you.
(1) Just see my explanation of how the Universe started on the Creationism thread for an example
How do I know? Valid question.
However, nothing I say could satisfiy someone...UNLESS.. they knew me for decades
and sat with me, looked into my eyes...as I told them or sat with me AS these experiences were happening!
Nothing like a contact high.
Your 'experiences' are no more valid or believable than those of the Muslim who tells of his experiences with Allah or the Hindu who tells of his experiences with Shiva, the Taoist who has experienced San-yuan, the Shintoist experience with Tsukuyomi; on and on we could go through the hundreds of world religions and the millions of claims made by their followers to have had 'personal experiences' with the gods of those religions. The Hebrew war god Yahweh would garner a little more respect if he spent less time talking to white, affluent, middle class Americans and more time making it rain in Africa so that they could grow food and not have to watch their children starve..
As another member here once said....'saying that you have a personal experience with your god is just another way of saying ...I talk to myself a lot'.
I knew at 5yrs old in church the stories were learning stories or from a time and neighborhood which was simply dealing with whatever setting.All this wrath stuff from the teachings does is provide an escape route for an excuse if thats the deal. The whole idea in all of it promotes human flourish and even a smart 5 yr old can get it. Thats why I never have and never will bother reading the Bible, it would of been written and was in part an introduction to people at the time with the flourishing value in all, together with stories ect.
Everyone is different, if a person finds meaning in the idea oh God loves me I know, well thats fine but for myself I don't worry about that from this vantage of reality, and simply try to go with whatever the deal is without evaluating the idea of god relative to quality control, what for if its understood a god of some form to be.
Last edited by stargazzer; 05-19-2013 at 10:53 AM..
God is not wrathful (full of wrath). He is holy. His holiness requires judgment.
Isaiah 28
16 Therefore thus says the Lord God,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed. 17 “I will make justice the measuring line, And righteousness the level."
Either Jesus (the Cornerstone) takes your judgement (mercy), or you do.
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